WebDAV, Zope, M$ and implications...
I was just talking to a BEA representative who also happened to do some consulting at a company I used to work for. This representative mentioned to me that my former employer (who is one of the biggest supporters of the Zope corporation due to a HUGE array of zope and ZEO servers, support contracts, consultants, etc...) just dropped Zope because of a management feud over WebDAV and M$Office support. I have not been able to confirm if this is true, but it sure had an impact on my current boss. If you know about BEA's Portal Server, it uses the WebDAV protocol to connect to any content management system. They provide an API which is supposed to connect to any WebDAV compliant content management system. He dropped this remark in a meeting with my boss (after I stuck my neck out and supported Zope as a good choice for managing our content). I have already written a connection pool and library for pulling zope content over an HTTP connection directly into our JSP pages. I'm using Zope 2.5, and I think that my former employer wasn't, so this may no longer be an issue. I need to know all about Zope, WebDAV, Microsoft office WebDAV and if Zope and M$ work friendly over that protocol. How stable is the zope DAV support, etc... I'm not under fire yet but I fear that I may soon be. P.S. I would also love to grab the names of any Python developers with extensive Zope experience who want to work potential contracts in Knoxville, TN. They could come in handy later when our implementation goes live, helping me get up to speed on some features, etc...
----- Original Message ----- From: "Matt Gregory" <matthew.gregory@skyleach.com> To: "Zope" <zope@zope.org> Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 15:03 Subject: [Zope] WebDAV, Zope, M$ and implications...
I was just talking to a BEA representative who also happened to do some consulting at a company I used to work for.
This representative mentioned to me that my former employer (who is one of the biggest supporters of the Zope corporation due to a HUGE array of zope and ZEO servers, support contracts, consultants, etc...) just dropped Zope because of a management feud over WebDAV and M$Office support. I have not been able to confirm if this is true, but it sure had an impact on my current boss.
WebDAV and M$Office related problems have been discussed multiple times on the zope and zope-dev list (please check the archives). The point is: M$ violates the WebDAV standard in an arrogant way and Zope tries the best to provide workarounds. One should blame M$, not Zope.
I need to know all about Zope, WebDAV, Microsoft office WebDAV and if Zope and M$ work friendly over that protocol. How stable is the zope DAV support, etc... I'm not under fire yet but I fear that I may soon be.
The latest released versions for Zope 2.4.X and 2.5.X have a couple of fixes and workaround that makes working with M$ applications reasonable. - aj --------------------------------------------------------------------- - Andreas Jung Zope Corporation - - EMail: andreas@zope.com http://www.zope.com - - "Python Powered" http://www.python.org - - "Makers of Zope" http://www.zope.org - - "Life is too short to (re)write parsers" - ---------------------------------------------------------------------
-> WebDAV and M$Office related problems have been discussed multiple times -> on the zope and zope-dev list (please check the archives). (a) I don't have time to surf through 6 months of archives looking for I-don't-know-what (b) I'm afraid that even if I did, I would miss a crucial piece of information Can one of the developers familiar with the MS/WebDAV situation write a HOWTO, or even just a mini-HOWTO, of the 10 most important points? It would be very helpful. Thanks, Derek
----- Original Message ----- From: "Derek Simkowiak" <dereks@realloc.net> To: "Andreas Jung" <andreas@zope.com> Cc: "Matt Gregory" <matthew.gregory@skyleach.com>; "Zope" <zope@zope.org> Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 16:21 Subject: Re: [Zope] WebDAV, Zope, M$ and implications...
-> WebDAV and M$Office related problems have been discussed multiple times -> on the zope and zope-dev list (please check the archives).
(a) I don't have time to surf through 6 months of archives looking for I-don't-know-what
That's what archives are for. As the person in charge for WebDAV at ZC I have posted several detailed explanations of the related problems. Don't expect I write the same explanations over and over again. Search in the archives for "andreas jung webdav office" or so... Andreas
Derek Simkowiak writes:
-> WebDAV and M$Office related problems have been discussed multiple times -> on the zope and zope-dev list (please check the archives).
(a) I don't have time to surf through 6 months of archives looking for I-don't-know-what You know, you can search the archives via Google?
(b) I'm afraid that even if I did, I would miss a crucial piece of information Come on. Start searching. Try what you found. If there remains a problem, look again at the archives and when that does not help, come again with a precise question.
Can one of the developers familiar with the MS/WebDAV situation write a HOWTO, or even just a mini-HOWTO, of the 10 most important points? It would be very helpful. After you did the above, you will be in an excellent position to write this HowTo.
I can assure you, it is a nice feeling to do something for the Zope community... Dieter
-> After you did the above, you will be in an excellent position to -> write this HowTo. Good grief. Why are you arguing that the Zope developer(s) -- who are already familiar with all the issues and the current Zope WebDAV status -- shouldn't take an hour to do a brain dump into a mini-HOWTO and publish it on the Zope.org website? I think the value in such a document is obvious. I'm a bit disappointed (and worried for Zope) that there is so much push-back against such a small amount of documentation. As somebody who does contract work, I can tell you that if a customer asked *MY* company for a single page of documentation, and I told them to simply spend a day or two browsing through old emails, they'd quickly switch to another vendor. (And I really don't need a lecture about the value of the contributing to the community. I simply prefer to spend my time contributing to projects where my expertise is useful.) --Derek
----- Original Message ----- From: "Derek Simkowiak" <dereks@realloc.net> To: "Dieter Maurer" <dieter@handshake.de> Cc: "Zope" <zope@zope.org> Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 18:27 Subject: Re: [Zope] WebDAV, Zope, M$ and implications...
-> After you did the above, you will be in an excellent position to -> write this HowTo.
Good grief.
Why are you arguing that the Zope developer(s) -- who are already familiar with all the issues and the current Zope WebDAV status -- shouldn't take an hour to do a brain dump into a mini-HOWTO and publish it on the Zope.org website?
I think the value in such a document is obvious. I'm a bit disappointed (and worried for Zope) that there is so much push-back against such a small amount of documentation.
You can not expect to have a How-To for every purpose - neither for Zope nor for other systems. The Zope community is usally very helpful in solving problems. Because this particular problem has been solved and discussed I feel free to point you to the former discussions. All of our time is limited - and instead of repeating the same stuff over and over again it is legitimate from my view to answer your question in the way I have done it.
As somebody who does contract work, I can tell you that if a customer asked *MY* company for a single page of documentation, and I told them to simply spend a day or two browsing through old emails, they'd quickly switch to another vendor.
See above. You will never find a complete documentation. The discussion is limited to some thread and you can easily find and walk through them within 15 minutes or so.
(And I really don't need a lecture about the value of the contributing to the community. I simply prefer to spend my time contributing to projects where my expertise is useful.)
The same here. Writing an How-to would take me about one hour or so but it took me only some minutes to show you the way to the resources that you are looking for. Andreas
On Thu, 2002-03-07 at 23:27, Derek Simkowiak wrote:
-> After you did the above, you will be in an excellent position to -> write this HowTo.
Good grief.
Why are you arguing that the Zope developer(s) -- who are already familiar with all the issues and the current Zope WebDAV status -- shouldn't take an hour to do a brain dump into a mini-HOWTO and publish it on the Zope.org website?
I think the value in such a document is obvious. I'm a bit disappointed (and worried for Zope) that there is so much push-back against such a small amount of documentation.
Of course it would be valuable. No-one's arguing anything. There's no push-back. It's just that the people doing the development from which you stand to benefit happen to have a different set of priorities from you. Isn't that their prerogative?
As somebody who does contract work, I can tell you that if a customer asked *MY* company for a single page of documentation, and I told them to simply spend a day or two browsing through old emails, they'd quickly switch to another vendor.
There is an enormous difference here: *YOU* get paid by customers to do the things which they ask you to do. Are *YOU* going to pay someone to write up the HOWTO? You just can't expect Zope as a free application to follow the laws of the proprietary software market, much as we'd all like to see Zope overtake PortalSiteServer 4.6 or whatever. seb
On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 11:51, seb bacon wrote:
There is an enormous difference here: *YOU* get paid by customers to do the things which they ask you to do. Are *YOU* going to pay someone to write up the HOWTO?
You just can't expect Zope as a free application to follow the laws of the proprietary software market, much as we'd all like to see Zope overtake PortalSiteServer 4.6 or whatever.
First off, to keep up with the commercial products you would actually need to delete over half of your documentation, leaving only the "CREDITS", "GETTING STARTED" and "DISCLAIMER" sections. -;^>= More importantly, forget about the commercial competitors and look at an excellent OSS rolemodel: PHP. Pick on their implementation, hairstyles or whatever, but their documentation just plain rocks the house. I could be a complete moron (unfurtunately a common debate) but with PHP I will most definitely find the answer to all my questions. Even if I cannot figure it out, there is example code that I can cut-n-paste to muck about with. With Zope, folks, we just aren't there yet. The ZDP (zdp.zope.org) is trying to get a handle on things, but it seems more of a past-tense thing that just petered out. E.g., last document change was 02/07/2001. And the mailing list archive for February was 50% spam (ok, 2 out of 4 messages, that is). What is it about Zope that makes it so difficult to document? Yes, I will help - but only with purpose! Is this the right place to sign up? -- Mitch Pirtle Corporate Security Officer Kühne & Nagel Management AG Tel: +41 1 786 96 45 Fax: +41 1 786 95 95
On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 11:20, Mitch Pirtle wrote:
On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 11:51, seb bacon wrote: More importantly, forget about the commercial competitors and look at an excellent OSS rolemodel: PHP. Pick on their implementation, hairstyles or whatever, but their documentation just plain rocks the house. I could be a complete moron (unfurtunately a common debate) but with PHP I will most definitely find the answer to all my questions. Even if I cannot figure it out, there is example code that I can cut-n-paste to muck about with.
With Zope, folks, we just aren't there yet. The ZDP (zdp.zope.org) is trying to get a handle on things, but it seems more of a past-tense thing that just petered out. E.g., last document change was 02/07/2001. And the mailing list archive for February was 50% spam (ok, 2 out of 4 messages, that is).
Have to disagree about the spam. The mailing list is actually pretty fine, IMO. All the best Zope wisdom is dispensed there. If only we could harness that...
What is it about Zope that makes it so difficult to document?
I don't know. I suspect it's something to do with the nature of the community, rather than the software. I think it's because there is too few people able to participate in any meaningful way. I think the ZDP people did a great job but were ultimately frustrated by the fact that they were pretty much doing it on their own, without much support from the rest of the community. Another example is ZopeLabs. It's a great idea, and a useful resource, but Alan is constantly frustrated by the lack of input from the rest of the community. Examples from my personal experience: Jon Edwards and I started doing a CMF news. We found other commitments were making it hard for us to do it. I asked for help about 3 times and never got a response. Finally, a few months ago there was lively debate about how rubbish the zope.org site is, and everyone had an opinion about how it should be improved. I've done a survey and Paul Everitt's done some mockups, but the debate generated since then has been tiny. I've got a list of names of people who have said they are willing to commit fixed hours to the project; I'm going to try to hold them to it soon :-) I'm not complaining, or pointing the finger. Everyone has their own reasons to do what they do, and their own priorities. I'm not suggesting it's the duty of every person on the mailing list to be intimately involved in Zope. Also, there is a small number of people who put a *lot* of energy into various things. If there were perhaps 200 people putting regular effort into the platform, things would be very different. My suspicion is that Zope has not reached the critical mass required. For 200 people to be fairly deeply involved, we probably need another 10000 people using Zope regularly. I suspect only 5% of the people reading this who would like to help actually have the time or resources to do so. We need to make that 5% be a proportion of a much larger pool of people. There is also a bootstrapping problem here, because newcomers will be put off Zope by its lack of developer polish. Another difference between Zope and PHP, that may explain the documentation thing, is that the commercial entity behind PHP makes money out of it by selling it as a product. Zope Corp makes money by selling consulting based on their product. Those are my guesses, anyway. Here are my questions: 1) Why do so many community efforts struggle to get momentum? 2) What is the secret to PHP's excellent documentation? seb
----- Original Message ----- From: "seb bacon" <seb@jamkit.com> To: "Mitch Pirtle" <mitch.pirtle@kuehne-nagel.com> Cc: <zope@zope.org> Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 08:07 Subject: [Zope] What causes the community to stall so often?
2) What is the secret to PHP's excellent documentation?
Comparing PHP with Zope is like comparing cats with cows. PHP is a language with a well-documented API. PHP is a framework with a more sophisticated and complex architecture. Documentating a language, its syntax and its API is much more easier than documentating a complete framework and the interaction of all components. Maybe it is easier for book- and documentation writers to document easy systems than complex ones. Zope 3 with its component model will be more like PHP. Simple components with a clear functionality and clear API are much better to understand, to document and to use. Mixin-classes in Zope 2 are often magic :-) <sarcasm> Maybe PHP developers need more documentation because Zope developers are more clever? ;-) </sarcasm> - aj
On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 14:07, seb bacon wrote:
<snipped for your pleasure>
Have to disagree about the spam.
Hey, Fabruary has 4 messages, one about ExpoServer and another about making money on the Internet (in Spanish), and still another trying to sell a content management tool. So out of 4 messages, 3 were solicitations. And the only Zope-related message was a request for examples available as a tarball! This is not a complaint. It just looks like a dead list to me...
Those are my guesses, anyway. Here are my questions:
1) Why do so many community efforts struggle to get momentum?
Because we are all, um, er, developers. (sheepish grin)
2) What is the secret to PHP's excellent documentation?
My suspicion is that their job is made easy by everything being wrapped up in a function. That may or may not be the way they intended it, but just the function reference alone is all I need for a very healthy and productive PHP life. I can do a tremendous amount of kewl things just knowing about those functions. So, how to mirror that in the Zope world? We simply cannot. There are a heckuva lot more than just functions here - there's objects, methods, DTML, ZPT, CMF, and all that other stuff I haven't learned about yet. I'm still hazy on DTML, and moving to ZPT/CMF because of both the 2.5 release and an inferiority complex. So I am sure I am missing something. My lack of understanding of the complete Zope environment keeps me from getting my arms around a logical documentation strategy, though. Zope, in one way, makes it much easier to get started (with the ZMI, acquisition, etc.); and in another way makes it damn hard (too many of too different things to document). For example, you cannot just write a TAL reference. It will have to include significant references to ZSQL methods, which are also intimately connected to vanilla DTML. Ditto for those Python scripts that send processed data for input into the database. Is there a better way to document all these lumpy, bumpy aspects of the Z Object Publishing Environment? -- Mitch Pirtle Corporate Security Officer Kühne & Nagel Management AG Tel: +41 1 786 96 45 Fax: +41 1 786 95 95
Is there a better way to document all these lumpy, bumpy aspects of the Z Object Publishing Environment?
I actually believe it's possible to document lots better; there could be much existing documentation reused and incorporated into a canonical place. Much of the problem stems from the fact that inside Zope Corporation, it's sometimes difficult to concentrate on the strategic (rewriting existing documentation or writing new documentation) when there is so much immediate customer-driven work to be done. This is why the recent plethora of (dead tree) Zope books is a Good Thing, in my opinion. It would of couse be better to have free docs, but in lieu of those, commercial publishers and authors fill the vacuum quite nicely. -- Chris McDonough Zope Corporation http://www.zope.org http://www.zope.com "Killing hundreds of birds with thousands of stones"
Chris McDonough wrote:
opinion. It would of couse be better to have free docs, but in lieu of those, commercial publishers and authors fill the vacuum quite nicely.
..except that they're all hideously out of date, still teaching ZClasses, DTML & the like. I want a book that covers best-practice method: - ZPT - Python Scripts - CMF - Skins - Portal Types - Workflow (etc) - Components Architecture - Interfaces - Unit Testing - Functional Testing Any takers? Any publishers listening? cheers, Chris
On Sat, 9 Mar 2002, Chris Withers wrote:
Chris McDonough wrote:
opinion. It would of couse be better to have free docs, but in lieu of those, commercial publishers and authors fill the vacuum quite nicely.
..except that they're all hideously out of date, still teaching ZClasses, DTML & the like.
I'll bite: are ZClasses officially among the fallen now? Even though I can write Python products, I still find ZClasses useful for knocking out quick "news item", "calendar item", etc. kind of objects. And DTML is hardly out-of-date, either. Still needed to general ZSQLMethods and for non-HTML-like output. (BTW, the 2.5 version of Zope book talks about ZPT; the Developer book talks about Unit Testing.) Would be nice to have a book really get into CMF, rather than just the one-chapter handwave. -- Joel BURTON | joel@joelburton.com | joelburton.com | aim: wjoelburton Independent Knowledge Management Consultant
On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 13:49, Mitch Pirtle wrote:
On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 14:07, seb bacon wrote:
<snipped for your pleasure>
Have to disagree about the spam.
Hey, Fabruary has 4 messages, one about ExpoServer and another about making money on the Internet (in Spanish), and still another trying to sell a content management tool. So out of 4 messages, 3 were solicitations. And the only Zope-related message was a request for examples available as a tarball!
Oops, I didn't realise you meant the ZPT list. seb
Mitch Pirtle says:
2) What is the secret to PHP's excellent documentation?
My suspicion is that their job is made easy by everything being wrapped up in a function. That may or may not be the way they intended it, but just the function reference alone is all I need for a very healthy and productive PHP life. I can do a tremendous amount of kewl things just knowing about those functions.
The function reference is pretty good, but there's still a fair amount that's undocumented or not well documented, or simply poorly cross-referenced. But... it's still pretty good.
So, how to mirror that in the Zope world? We simply cannot. There are a heckuva lot more than just functions here - there's objects, methods, DTML, ZPT, CMF, and all that other stuff I haven't learned about yet.=20 I'm still hazy on DTML, and moving to ZPT/CMF because of both the 2.5 release and an inferiority complex. So I am sure I am missing something. [...] Is there a better way to document all these lumpy, bumpy aspects of the Z Object Publishing Environment?
I've written a review article, in which I cover some of my impressions about this: http://www.cmswatch.com/Features/ProductWatch/FeaturedProduct/?feature_id=61 I think that a lot of the problems with the documentation are with the organization of the documentation, not with the content. The people who write documentation related to Zope tend to write it for themselves, from the perspective of someone who already knows how to do the thing they're describing. It's difficult to put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn't know why a thing works the way it does, and write without assumptions. It's okay to not document everything all in one place - this is what hyperlinks were invented for. Two very important things missing, from my perspective, are 1) a strong central repository (with permanent urls), so people know where to go for answers instead of searching with Google, and b) having people who write documentation have some knowledge of what else is out there so they can link to it and comment on it (which would be easier to do if there was a strong central repository).
Mitch Pirtle writes:
On Fri, 2002-03-08 at 14:07, seb bacon wrote: Hey, Fabruary has 4 messages, one about ExpoServer and another about making money on the Internet (in Spanish), and still another trying to sell a content management tool. So out of 4 messages, 3 were solicitations. And the only Zope-related message was a request for examples available as a tarball! Apparently, you look at the "zcommerce" list which is really dead (apart from spam).
When you look at Zope's main list, you see each day about several hundred messages and maybe 0 to 2 spam mails. That should not be a big problem. Dieter
On Fri, Mar 08, 2002 at 11:12:32PM +0100, Dieter Maurer wrote:
Apparently, you look at the "zcommerce" list which is really dead (apart from spam).
Note also that the zcommerce list is not run on zope.org, and has no spam-filtering whatsoever. -- Martijn Pieters | Software Engineer mailto:mj@zope.com | Zope Corporation http://www.zope.com/ | Creators of Zope http://www.zope.org/ ---------------------------------------------
seb bacon writes:
1) Why do so many community efforts struggle to get momentum? I can you give only a very personal answer...
I was one of those people complaining about "zope.org" mainly about its unsatisfying search capabilities and less than clear structure. But I know how to work around these deficiencies. I have enough real (hard) problems that I do not need to worry about small ones. Dieter
Derek Simkowiak writes:
-> After you did the above, you will be in an excellent position to -> write this HowTo.
Good grief.
Why are you arguing that the Zope developer(s) -- who are already familiar with all the issues and the current Zope WebDAV status -- shouldn't take an hour to do a brain dump into a mini-HOWTO and publish it on the Zope.org website? They argue like you: they can make better use of their time...
Dieter
Dieter Maurer wrote:
Come on. Start searching. Try what you found. If there remains a problem, look again at the archives and when that does not help, come again with a precise question.
Just to test a point, I tried the search Andreas described earlier (on "andreas jung webdav office" at http://www.zope.org/SiteIndex/searchForm searching only on lists.zope.org). It pulled up 21 hits (3 google pages) to posts submitted over the period Aug 2001 - Feb 2002. It's certainly not immediately apparent where to begin on the issue. And there's no easy way on Google that I know of to rank stuff by date. Viewing each message one by one will certainly take more than 15 minutes: and with no guarantee of success. Using the archives isn't that much fun either: it's the default pipermail situation. With heavily-trafficked lists like zope@zope.org there's a 1000+ messages so **the index** of a month's worth is a page of 150kb+ or more. Maybe other people are luckier that me (I have a 115kbit/s connection), but even so I'm waiting 16 seconds just to begin to find headers that **might** be relevant, never mind the time for reading and downloading each one individually. Andreas Jung wrote:
You can not expect to have a How-To for every purpose - neither for Zope nor for other systems. The Zope community is usally very helpful in solving problems. Because this particular problem has been solved and discussed I feel free to point you to the former discussions. All of our time is limited - and instead of repeating the same stuff over and over again it is legitimate from my view to answer your question in the way I have done it.
While the documentation lies locked up in obscure email threads, you are doomed to repeat yourselves over and over because it's easier for people with questions to post to the list than search the archives. And don't forget you are familiar with the archives, while someone coming to solve an issue may not be. At some point this situation fails to scale, which is why FAQs, HOWTOs, and mini-HOWTOs and manuals were invented. Note also that each time you fail to state the URL of the thread that first discussed an issue you are failing to utilise Google's main advantage which is to increase the importance score of more linked-to pages. Relying on the archives as the definitive documentation imposes a serious drag on anyone working on Zope. It's easy for dilettantes like me who have only a few hours a week to give to Zope: the approach you suggest makes learning Zope seem insurmountable, and I can look elsewhere. But it must be tough for anyone working on a deadline using Zope. Perhaps this what you want? The cynical thought occurs to me that the worse the documentation, the higher the consulting fees, the greater the book royalties. I'm glad I don't rely on it for anything serious (and I can't say I'd recommend it to others in its present state). RTFM? IWMITWAFM! (I wouldn't mind if there was a fine manual!) D. The documentation is the software. -- Douglas Carnall tel:+44 (0)20 7241 1255 fax:08700 557879 mob:07900 212881 http://www.carnall.org/ dougie@carnall.org
Douglas Carnall writes:
Dieter Maurer wrote:
Come on. Start searching. Try what you found. If there remains a problem, look again at the archives and when that does not help, come again with a precise question.
Just to test a point, I tried the search Andreas described earlier (on "andreas jung webdav office" at http://www.zope.org/SiteIndex/searchForm searching only on lists.zope.org). It pulled up 21 hits (3 google pages) to posts submitted over the period Aug 2001 - Feb 2002.
It is quite often that people complain about lacking documentation but they do not read what is there. Lots of questions are really FAQ's, described e.g. in the Zope book, the Zope developer guide or <http://www.dieter.handshake.de/pyprojects/zope/book/chap3.html> Nevertheless, they come up over and over again. I am quite happy to help people but I expect that they are also ready to do something. This can take several forms: * they looked around for available information (Zope book, Zope developers guide, my chapter three, the mailing list archives) before they ask * they summarize what they learned in a piece of documentation e.g. a HowTo on Zope.org. * they help other people in the community I have no understanding at all for people who tell me they need to make money with real projects and therefore do not have time to search for information. Me, too, I need to make my living and do not have time to write things down for others that they can concentrate on their projects... I also can not share your experience with Google. Recently, a colleague reported a weird bug: he accesses a MS Word file inside Zope and is asked by IE 6 to provide his network password. No problem with IE 5.5. Ten minutes Googling revealed a relevant thread that provided a precise problem description and some work arounds. I do not think that a HowTo could have helped more. The problem was quite specific. To find something related would almost surely require a search engine.. Dieter
I have no understanding at all for people who tell me they need to make money with real projects and therefore do not have time to search for information. Me, too, I need to make my living and do not have time to write things down for others that they can concentrate on their projects...
Dieter, You make fair points, and of course there are always be issues that will only be documented on relatively obscure web resources. As a clueless newbie, I am very conscious of the need not to waste people time on the list, but my experience with Zope so far has been characterised by many hours of searching to resolve what were really quite simple issues. Now this undoubtedly represents my ignorance: I had to learn lots about user and group permissions to get it to work, and was caught out by the default debug mode -D problem with Zope start. Overall, it took about ten hours. But if these issues had been in the HOWTO it would have taken one or two hours. So Zope's patchy documentation cost me 8 hours; this did not inspire me. Now, I do have it on my TO DO list to provide feedback to mcdonc about the problems I had with the HOWTO (http://www.zope.org/Members/mcdonc/HowTos/zopeinstall/ZOPE-INSTALL-HOWTO), but that takes more time as well. When I see posts from core Zope people saying (basically) RTFM rather than precisely referencing an issue it depresses me, because in fact every time they do that they are weakening the platform I hope to learn, and increasing the drag on the efforts of others to get started. Maybe if, as a friendly courtesy, everyone who responds on an already-discussed issue included one relevant URL in their reply Zope would start to be a better documented place. D. -- Douglas Carnall tel:+44 (0)20 7241 1255 fax:08700 557879 mob:07900 212881 http://www.carnall.org/ dougie@carnall.org
Douglas Carnall writes:
.... When I see posts from core Zope people saying (basically) RTFM rather than precisely referencing an issue it depresses me, because in fact every time they do that they are weakening the platform I hope to learn, and increasing the drag on the efforts of others to get started.
Maybe if, as a friendly courtesy, everyone who responds on an already-discussed issue included one relevant URL in their reply Zope would start to be a better documented place. You ask for a lot, too much for me personally, at least:
I read several hundred posts per day and respond to about a dozen. I have only a few minutes per post. While, of course, it would take only some additional few minutes to look up a (single) precise URL or reference, I get angry when someones asks "URL please!". It is his problem not mine. He cannot expect that I take longer to help him solve his problem than he is ready to work on it himself. Therefore, many of my responses are: background reading, mailing list archives, search Zope.org... When you think that weakens the community and you want to change something, then you are invited to take over where I (and others) stop. Dieter
Em Sab 09 Mar 2002 06:21, Douglas Carnall escreveu:
two hours. So Zope's patchy documentation cost me 8 hours; this did not inspire me.
This make me think if zope will be the next "a patchy web server". ;-) Sorry, but i haven't been able resist to this. []'s -- Sidnei da Silva X3ng Web Technology sidnei@x3ng.com.br
participants (14)
-
Adam Fields -
Andreas Jung -
Andreas Jung -
Chris McDonough -
Chris Withers -
Derek Simkowiak -
Dieter Maurer -
Douglas Carnall -
Joel Burton -
Martijn Pieters -
Matt Gregory -
Mitch Pirtle -
seb bacon -
Sidnei da Silva